A germline PDGFRB splice site variant associated with infantile myofibromatosis and resistance to imatinib

Abstract

Purpose: Infantile myofibromatosis is characterized by the development of myofibroblastic tumors in young children. In most cases, the disease is caused by somatic gain-of-function variants in platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) receptor beta (PDGFRB). Here, we reported a novel germline intronic PDGFRB variant, c.2905-8G>A, in 6 unrelated infants with multifocal myofibromatosis and their relatives.

Methods: We performed constitutional and tumor DNA and RNA sequencing to identify novel variants, which were subsequently characterized in cellular assays.

Results: All patients had multiple skin nodules, 4 had bone lesions, and 2 had aggressive disease with bowel obstruction. The c.2905-8G>A substitution creates an alternative acceptor splice site in intron 21, inserting 2 codons in the PDGFRB transcript. Functional studies revealed that the splice change induced a partial loss of function, contrasting with previously described variants. In 4 tumor samples, we identified a second somatic hit at position Asp850 in PDGFRB exon 18, triggering constitutive receptor activation and resistance to imatinib. In addition to vinblastine and methotrexate, 2 patients received imatinib without objective response. One of them switched to dasatinib with concomitant improvement.

Conclusion: This splice-site PDGFRB variant favors the development of myofibroma, featuring an acquired oncogenic variant in the same gene and resistance to targeted therapy.

Keywords: Cancer predisposition; Drug resistance; Receptor tyrosine kinase; Targeted therapy; Tyrosine kinase inhibitor.